Veronica Lulu Napangarti

Veronica says of her painting: “A long time ago, Walmajarri people, young and old, lived on tjunta (bush onion) at Paruku, or Lake Gregory. The women went out gathering tjunta because it was easy and not hard to find, it grows all over around the Paruku, along side of the lake and the birds feed on it too. Now days people goes out mostly in winter time, my grandfather grew up eating it when he was a little boy, his mother used to go out gathering all kinds of bush tucker when she would not find any when would bring back lots of tjunta. Tjunta is a good bush tucker for kids to eat and they are sitting around the campfire listening to stories or when they are waiting for the meat getting cooked in the hot coals they would listen to their mothers or fathers telling them stories about themselves or the Tjukurrpa (Dreamtime) stories. Veronica also paints Mungul: Mungul, a type of low lying creeper, surrounds the perimeter of the lake. The purple, brown, red and green colours depict the various stages of the plant growing. The purple and pink show the plants more advanced stages of growth but still not ready for collection while the yellow colour represents the plant ready to be collected. The seeds of the plant are collected and washed then left in the sun to dry. They are then ground and made into bush damper.